Confetti Canon
by amandajbruce
Summary: A collection of one shots set during season two and three focusing on Coulson's team. An alphabet challenge.
1. Adapting

Confetti Canon.

-o-

Adapting.

-o-

"Small chips – uh – fries, please. And hot tea?" She swallowed uncomfortably, handing over a few bills as the cashier instructed.

Jemma felt like everyone in the little burger joint was staring at her. That was, of course, ridiculous. The mothers with their small children itching to throw down their chicken nuggets and scramble into the ball pit were clearly not interested in her. The teenagers with large soft drinks camped out in booths for the free wi-fi weren't going to be paying her any mind either. Neither were the senior citizens cashing in on discounted coffee. The staff probably cared least of all. Who knows how many customers they went through in a day? She had seen nearly a dozen people order their food to-go and leave just in the time she'd been standing in line. This really was the perfect place for what she needed to do.

Fully aware of the evidence to the contrary, she tried to ignore the feeling that all eyes were trained in her direction and took her tray from the cashier. A small paper sack of French fries – she had to remember to keep calling them that, even after a decade in the States – and a cup full of hot water, an envelope of tea nestled next to it, probably didn't seem like the healthiest of lunch options, but she wasn't entirely sure she would be able to keep it down. Not on this first day out.

Choosing a table near the back corner of the restaurant, right next to the doors to the bathrooms, Jemma smiled as a toddler careened around her legs, arms spread out as though he was flying. She settled into her seat to wait, nibbling on fries, letting her tea steep, and pulled out a well-worn novel to read. She would read a few pages, then allow her gaze to wander the lobby of the restaurant. She was fifteen pages in, her tea now cold, and her fries mostly gone, when she saw him walk in.

She held her breath and counted to ten.

He ordered an iced tea, not even acknowledging her presence, a newspaper tucked under one arm as he waited for his purchase.

She stared at the surface of the table and slowly let her breath out, as quiet as could be.

He pulled the paper from a straw, pushing it through the lid with a squeak, taking a sip of the sweet tea before looking around for an empty table.

She could feel his eyes just slip right on by her, even though her gaze was firmly locked down, one finger playing with the salt on her tray.

He slid into a seat at a table across from her, opening up his newspaper, rolling his shoulders, seemingly perfectly relaxed for someone who was now Director of a fugitive organization.

She forced herself to breathe. In and out. She read another paragraph in her book and tried to still her shaking fingers when she turned the page. In and out. Breathe.

Twenty minutes later, the iced tea was drained with a slurp and a rattling of ice, and he rose from his seat, leaving the business section of the newspaper on the table as he left.

She slowly counted to 100, made sure no one was going to take the paper before she rose as well, disposing of her garbage, easily tucking her book under her arm, and making a big show of reading the headlines on the newspaper. She made a noise in the back of her throat to indicate interest in a particular story, just in case someone was watching her, and picked it up, pretending to read while she walked. She dodged a few more children as she departed the building through the side door. Waiting until she was a block away from the fast food chain, she opened the paper carefully, finding the envelope inside.

She sighed with relief and slipped the envelope into the waistband of her jeans, blocked carefully by the paper as she tucked her blouse over it. She had done it.

First real dead drop done. She was grateful for the patience May had taken with her in the weeks before she left. If May hadn't reassured her over and over that she was capable of doing this, Jemma might have been violently ill instead of nervous. In much better spirits, Jemma smiled brightly at the next group of people she passed, tossing the newspaper in the garbage, and doing something of a skip and a hop into a convenience store, purchasing a six pack of bottled beer and a canister of chamomile tea to celebrate.

It wasn't until she entered her apartment, locked the door behind her, pulled all of her blinds securely shut and checked behind every door and in every closet for an intruder that she popped open a bottle of beer, took a quick gulp, and removed the envelope from under her blouse, the paper pulling against her heated skin and making her squirm. She pulled the flap of the envelope up and removed the sheet of paper.

On it was a long sequence of numbers. Luckily for Simmons, there were only a handful of codes they had gone over, and she very quickly deciphered exactly what it said. She was immensely proud that she didn't even have to write it down.

_Congratulations on your first drop. I know you are nervous, but you can do this. Keep your head down to start. Stay background. Gather intel. Same time. Same place. Three days. Your turn. You need to meet earlier, leave the blue butterfly in your window. I will find a way to contact you. Do not be discouraged if you do not have much info to give. This will take time. You need out, use the red butterfly. We will extract you. Burn this._

She drained the rest of her bottle of beer, grimacing as she did. Her eyes lit on the painting near the entrance way. Just at the bottom were the two large plastic butterflies, easily removable, easy to put on the window sill in full street view. A part of her wanted to run over, pull the red butterfly from its perch and fling it at the window sill. She wanted to beg them to send someone else instead. She wanted to go back to the Playground where she was safe.

But she closed her eyes and drew in a breath, fingers twitching against her thigh, seeing Fitz's distant expression, Skye's increasingly good aim with and willingness to use a real gun, worry lines on May's forehead that she tried to pretend weren't there, the agents whose faces she couldn't put to names – of which there were far too few. They needed her here. There were no biological or chemical problems for her to work out in the lab right now. And Coulson had found other scientists. Maybe not as good or as accomplished as she was, but a team of scientists with somewhat lesser experience would be enough to take her place for the time being. Back at the base, she was only getting in the way of Fitz's recovery. He was looking to her more often than not for answers that she didn't have. She wasn't one of the active agents sent out with the rest of the team. She wasn't someone who monitored communication channels. She was a hindrance. Plain and simple. But here, she could find something. Here, she could get them an advantage. She could make a difference.

Lighting a candle on the kitchen counter, Jemma burned the paper until there was nothing left but small brown unrecognizable bits, then rinsed them all down the garbage disposal, following it with a little vinegar and throwing the switch on the wall for good measure.

Then, she opened another beer and went over her cover story in her head again. It wasn't that different from her real story. It had been enough to get her a spot in Hydra's lab. But she wasn't taking any chances. She curled into the corner of her couch and muttered, "Jemma Simmons, top of the biochemical game, all alone and looking for the big kids on the science playground." It sounded like something Skye would say. If she were allowed to speak with her.

-o-

Jemma glided into the burger joint for lunch, a copy of _Newsweek _curled into one hand. Today had been a good day, so she ordered herself a milkshake and a burger with bacon and cheese. She'd run a little further on the treadmill in the morning. A little junk food wasn't going to kill her. She handed over her cash (always cash these days, because credit cards could be tracked), and accepted her change with a chirpy, "thank you."

Allowing her gaze to search out a seat while she waited on her strawberry shake, she spotted Coulson, still in a suit and tie, at a table in the back, just across from her usual one. He was eating an ice cream sundae (Jemma idly wondered if May would approve of the sweet tooth), doing a crossword puzzle on the table in front of him. She fought the urge to smile in his direction, just accepted her food and made her way to her usual seat, eating quickly and methodically, not wanting to appear overeager, but also not wanting to make him wait very long.

She acted as though she was flicking through the magazine, just another young professional taking a break from a busy job with a cheap lunch. When she reached the end of her burger, Jemma feigned checking the time on her wrist, and then, as though she was in danger of being late, hurriedly grabbed her shake and sped out the door, leaving her trash and _Newsweek _on the table.

Coulson sighed and had to keep himself from laughing at Jemma's theatrical performance. It was the same every time she was the one who had to make the drop. He knew she was doing just fine in the lab because she hadn't been compromised yet, but he hoped no one ever decided to follow her. He rolled his eyes at one of the other customers who eyed the trash with disgust.

"Kids these days, right?" Coulson said conversationally, climbing to his feet and gesturing for the older woman to take his table. He added his trash to Jemma's and walked it to the garbage can, tucking the _Newsweek _under his arm and exiting.

His cab was waiting for him just across the street.

"Where to?" May asked him from the driver's seat with a smirk.

"Anywhere you're going," he responded easily, scooting into the backseat and slamming the door shut.

"How's our girl?"

"She looks good."

"I saw her when she left, Phil."

"Then you saw as much as I did."

They were quiet while May pulled into traffic and Coulson flicked through the magazine until he found what he was looking for, a postcard with a list of nonsensical words on it. He blinked, and it took him a few blocks to remember the code Simmons was using as he copied the words into a legible form.

"She's got us a list of names," he told May. "Hydra personnel."

May nodded her head, but didn't say anything.

"She asked for this assignment," he reminded her. "She needed it."

May flicked her gaze to him in the mirror, but she still didn't respond.

"She's going to be okay."

May pursed her lips and gave a curt nod of agreement.

-o-

The drops became easier.

A quick glance let her know that no one was watching.

She didn't have to do the entire animated shtick to pick up an abandoned paper or leave a book behind anymore.

They had progressed to trade-offs that didn't involve being inside the fast food chain anymore either, varying her routine. She frequently scribbled notes about her progress in code on the inside wrapper of breakfast sandwiches, dropping the half-finished sandwich into the garbage can exactly six blocks from the building where she was working. She preferred that method. It required less acting nonchalant on her part and more hurrying down the street avoiding prying eyes. She wasn't sure who was dressing as a city employee to grab the trash bag and retrieve her intel. She had a hard time picturing Coulson in the uniform of a trash collector. May was even more difficult. Of course, they could also be posing as a homeless person looking for a good meal. Or someone who accidentally threw their cell phone in with their garbage and had to reach in for it. She had to stifle a giggle every time she thought about it.

She had even made use of a dead drop spike, something they rarely used in the field as SHIELD agents. She had carefully rolled up copies of documents, slipped them into the plastic tubing, and capped it. She slid the spike into the back of her waistband, sure it would stay in place as a result of the elastic, slipped on a loose jacket, and did her morning run in the park instead of on her treadmill. It was easy to slip the spike from her waist during a stretch and step on it until it slid into the earth, exactly one meter from the spot where the pretzel truck would set up.

Jemma Simmons had never felt so far removed from being a scientist in her life.

-o-

Sometimes, Coulson was too busy being Director to be the one to make their meetings. Sometimes, Jemma walked into a fast food restaurant or ran on the path by the pretzel truck to find Melinda May with a bottle of water in one hand, newspaper in the other.

Those were the days where Jemma almost faltered.

Seeing May out and about instead of Coulson made things real, made her realize that she wasn't just working an angle in a lab that could get her in trouble with the boss. This wasn't corporate espionage. She wasn't trading business secrets for a higher paycheck. This was life or death. If she wasn't careful, if she didn't do exactly as May had taught her, she could wind up dead.

Those were the days she would linger just a bit at the drop point, hoping for something, anything, on the team. And it was after one of those days that she finally broke, putting the blue butterfly in the window, indicating she needed an earlier meet.

-o-

Jemma had gotten in the habit of running in the morning. In the world of espionage, she needed her routine to stay the same. It kept her anxiety from boiling over. Usually. But after putting the butterfly in the window, she was too amped up to stick with her schedule. As the sun began to set, she made sure her blinds and curtains were closed securely, that every way out of her flat was locked up tight, and she turned every single light on to know if anything was about to jump out from the corners where shadows lurked like the boogeymen of childhood nightmares.

She always felt like someone was watching her now, but she had generally accepted that prickly sensation on the back of her neck as a way of life. It didn't mean she wanted it to consume her while she tried to outrun her concerns next to her window. She ran her requisite three miles, still marveling that she was able to do that, but gradually increasing the distance every day meant that if she ever needed to sprint away from a Hydra agent in the future, she could do it.

Still holding on to a manic amount of energy, Jemma turned her attention to her small kitchen, pulling the meager supplies from the cabinets and scrubbing the doors and shelves free of DNA and fingerprints until everything was glossy and the skin of her hands was practically rubbed raw. Muscles aching, head spinning from the scent of lemon and disinfectant, she started to place her belongings back into their proper places, her mind drifting to other times when she pulled things from cabinets and closets, ticking off items on a list, turning in inventory reports to a nodding Coulson and trading quips about the lack of chocolate with Skye and Fitz.

A knock at the door brought her hastily back to her present situation. She steeled her shoulders and crept carefully to the door, not prepared for who she saw on the other side – not Coulson. Coulson was always the one who made the home visits. He wasn't willing to put anyone else at risk. Jemma opened the door with a smile plastered on her face.

"Hello!" She knew her voice was overly bright, but she couldn't help it. She was oozing with relief and nervous energy, wrapped up in her doubts and needing reassurance.

"I have a delivery for Miss Simmons."

"It's Doctor Simmons," she corrected gently, and the person with the delivery smirked.

Her neighbor's door opened with a squeak, so she ushered the person holding the paper bag that smelled faintly of onions and chicken and seasonings she couldn't place inside. "I wasn't expecting you so soon. Come in. I just need to locate my wallet."

She shut the door behind them, but didn't lock it. That would be suspicious.

"You okay, Simmons?"

"I just – didn't expect it to be you, Agent May."

May kept her face blank. She turned, her eyes roaming the apartment, and briskly walked to the table to set down the bag. She hadn't been inside since sweeping the apartment for surveillance devices before Simmons had "moved in." Jemma knew what the woman was thinking – it was sunny and bright and very Simmons, but it still looked as though she was living in someone else's home. Well, technically she was.

"You needed to meet. Coulson's on a recruiting run. He thinks he found a mechanic."

"Oh." Jemma was quiet, her hands wringing in front of her. She tried to process her thoughts. If May was acting as a delivery person, they only had moments before her presence in the flat was too long to be considered normal.

"Anything wrong?"

"I just – I don't know if my work is even doing any good. I don't feel as though I'm passing on any useful information. I know, having only been here a few weeks, it's unrealistic to hope for more. Deep cover agents, shadow agents, sometimes they spend months or years in their personas, but I had thought, given my background, I'd be advancing much more quickly." Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She didn't want May to know she'd requested a meet just because she was feeling lonely and scared and needed someone to tell her she was doing the right thing.

"Coulson told you to keep your head down, blend in?"

"Yes."

"Don't."

Jemma met May's eyes in surprise. The expression on May's face was still carefully blank, but her eyes were fierce.

"I don't understand."

"Jemma Simmons is the brightest scientist to come out of SHIELD. She left because they lacked resources to advance her work. Take advantage of their research and show them what they've been missing out on."

Jemma smiled, one of the first genuine smiles she'd given in weeks.

"Thank you."

"Any time, Simmons. Take the butterfly out of the window." She paused. "Your next meet is Thursday night at the taco place. If Coulson's still out, I'll meet you for whatever you've got. We'll use the bathroom instead of the newspaper, okay? You remember how to open the paper towel dispenser?"

"Okay." She nodded her head, and May turned, almost making it to the door before Jemma gathered her courage and asked, "Are they angry with me for leaving?"

"For now. But they won't be when they know why."

-o-

* * *

**I decided after having so much fun writing about Agents of SHIELD during season one with Conversation Hearts, I'd do another alphabet challenge for season two. So, each chapter will be focused on a word for that particular letter of the alphabet. Each chapter will most likely focus on only a couple of characters at a time as well. They won't be in any kind of chronological order, just different small pieces of the season. The plan is that everything here will fit in with the canon storylines. Feel free to send me random words. **

**And a thanks goes to notapepper for not only beta-ing for me, but giving me a title for these one shots when I was stuck. **


	2. Birthday

When he was a kid, Fitz had never really understood all the fuss his mother made about birthdays. They didn't have a big family to invite over and since he was years ahead of his classmates, he didn't exactly make friends easily. There was never a big party to plan or a trip to make. It was just another day to him. But to his mother, it was a roast and cake and a special surprise for her little boy tied up with a glittery ribbon. Sometimes, it was a broken appliance with the challenge to fix it. Sometimes, it was scrap that she'd picked up from who knows where that he could use for anything he liked. Other times, it was tickets for a day at a museum, and still others it was a perfectly good piece of electronic equipment with a wink and a smile and a _what do you think you can do with this, love?_

When he joined up with SHIELD, his birthday was in his file, but he never really went around telling people when it was - not too long after he started his training. He had a very small number of SHIELD cadets he could tolerate while at the Academy and at SciOps. He never could find someone he clicked with enough to care about celebrating another circling of the sun. There were robotics to learn about and machines to build and discoveries to be made.

Until he was paired up Dr. Jemma Simmons in a lab on a project and she left him a tiny bottle of scotch with a big blue bow on it when she found out it was his birthday just weeks after that first lab together. It seemed a shame to waste such a thoughtful present, especially as they weren't yet of age for the U.S. branch of SHIELD, and he didn't really know anyone else he'd like to share it with. Being the careful and controlled prospective SHIELD agent that she was, it was Simmons who had suggested celebrating his birthday where no one could find them breaking any rules, which is how he'd found himself on the roof of one of the physics labs at 2AM staring at the sky with her and debating what else was out there as they passed the bottle back and forth.

(Back then, they didn't know about Asgardians or Kree or any other manner of classified SHIELD files on possible extraterrestrial beings.)

It was an activity they repeated the following month when Jemma celebrated her birthday as well, though with whisky instead, making her eyes bright and his laugh louder than it usually was. And as the years went on following those first celebrations, there was always some sort of cake - gluten and sugar free when Simmons was in charge, extra chocolate and cream when Fitz was.

But this was the second year in a row since they'd met that Fitz had decided to pretend his birthday didn't exist. Last year, his brain had been jumbled and he'd had a hard enough time even stringing a sentence together, and Simmons wasn't even there. It had been easier to pretend he didn't know when August turned into September and both of their birthdays went by while he was still working on the same piece of technology that he couldn't quite get right.

This year though as he worked, he couldn't help his eyes from straying to the date on the corner of the computer screen every time he had to sit in the lab. His brain was fine. New connections had been formed. He could handle the technology. Most days. What he couldn't handle was that August had again turned into September and he had no idea where Jemma Simmons was.

Again.

He ran one traitorously shaking hand through his hair as he looked around the lab before he shook it at his side, fingers tingling and twitching. No one was paying any attention to him. Just how he liked it these days. Clicking away from the screen with schematics for a new gun that had been finished ages ago, but that he kept pretending to fiddle with when anyone walked by, he opened up a separate drive. He clicked his way through layers of hidden files as quickly as possible. He might not have been a hacker like Skye, but he knew his way around this particular system just fine. It was all they'd used since his first days with SHIELD. Even the fall hadn't changed the kind of software they used. It just meant that more security was installed.

A few more clicks and he pulled up the documents he'd been looking for. Old stories, newspaper articles, reports of strange activity and anything and everything he could find. He was looking for old possibly-Inhuman activity and strange disappearances, even reappearances. If it was the last thing he was going to do he was going to find a pattern that led him straight to Jemma. He was going to find her.

Maybe then he'd stop imagining her stuck in the middle of a granite prison.

He spent the next four hours combing through the data he'd found, skipping dinner, but he still couldn't find what he was looking for. He needed someone who actually knew _what_ he should be looking for. He had a few ideas for that, but it wasn't something he could pursue in the middle of the base.

Loud voices from the hall and the sounds of velcro straps being removed, guns being unpacked, and cases being dropped on the floor let him know that Mack and Skye were back from whatever the latest mission that they wouldn't tell anyone about was. He saved his work and buried it just as quickly, bringing the plans for his gun back up.

"Hey, Turbo." Mack's voice rumbled into the room from the doorway, but he didn't come all the way in. "How - uh -" Mack sighed. "How's the work going?"

"Fine. A few more tweaks an' it'll be done." Fitz forced a smile in Mack's direction.

Mack nodded his head, patted the doorjamb with one hand, then turned and left the room behind, his vest dangling from his other fingers. Fitz let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Holding his breath, waiting for someone to call him out. Mack was the hardest one to lie to. They had all been banned from investigating Jemma for the time being. Coulson thought there were other priorities, and for once, he and Mack were on the same page.

It seemed Coulson and just about everyone else were on the same page.

Except for Fitz.

Fitz waited until the voices had died down and moved on through the hall. He stood and crept out of the lab, fingers twisting into the sleeves of his shirt as he walked nervously in the opposite direction. The closer he got to the darker part of the hallway where all the doors were shut and the storage rooms weren't used though, the straighter his back became and the more determined he felt. He would find her. He was sure of it. His eyes roved over the yellow tape keeping _the door_ apart from the rest of the base. He rolled his eyes and looked determinedly at the security camera up in the corner. Staring it down for a moment, he took a few steps forward, but he didn't go inside. Instead, he swallowed and stood inches from the door, taking in gulps of air.

Fitz placed a hand on the wall in front of him, the brick alternating between smoothed stone and rough edges. He might not be allowed in _the room_ anymore, but he'd like to think she'd hear him all the same.

"Happy Birthday, Jemma."

-o-

* * *

**It's been a very long time since I've written anything drabbly, but I wanted to get back to my alphabet challenge at some point. It looks like this one will combine seasons two and three, with this chapter set between the two. This chapter is themed around birthdays because this month happens to be the birthday of Jemma Simmons and funnily enough, both of my usual beta readers (who I actually didn't have read this ahead of time, so surprise!). Make sure you wish StarryDreamer01 and notapepper the happiest of belated birthdays.**


	3. Caught

Caught

-o-

Fitz's phone rang for the fourth time that afternoon, letting out a shrill tone he couldn't tune out, but he just pulled it out of his pocket and hit the ignore button. He sighed when he saw who was calling and switched the phone to vibrate. Fitz knew exactly why she was looking for him. Coulson had probably come down to the lab with another problem with his new hand. Bobbi could handle it. He had a more pressing concern.

He licked his lips as the cab he was in came to a stop and he let out a breath, handing over a few bills to the driver. He didn't get out of the car right away though; instead he just stared out the window.

"You want me to wait?"

"Uh, no. No, that's all right. I'll call for a pick up when I'm done." Fitz nodded and reached for the door handle.

"You ask for my cab number. I'll get you to your hotel in record time after your meeting."

Fitz gave the older man a small smile and told him, "I'm not stayin'. It'll be back to the airport after my meetin'." He could hear the driver mumbling about it being a shame these days, everyone always in a hurry, but Fitz let himself out of the car and shut the door behind him, staring up at the office building in front of him. This wasn't exactly where he thought he'd find his next lead.

When he walked inside, hitching his backpack up on his shoulder, he felt strangely out of place. Everyone in the lobby had briefcases and wore suits, ready for a full day of corporate America, and he was standing there like a fish out of water with a ratty knapsack and a cardigan on over a well worn button down. If this particular lead didn't pan out, he was going to have to consider a wardrobe change to better fit in out in the real world.

"Ex - excuse me?" Fitz shuffled up to the receptionist, one hand pulling on his backpack strap, the other tapping a rhythm on her desk.

She barely looked up. "Yes?"

"I have an appointment with HR. Human Resources."

"Yeah. I know what HR is." She popped her gum and rolled her eyes. "Ninth floor." She tapped her headset and answered the phone just as it rang.

Fitz nodded and made his way up. He spent the whole elevator ride shifting his weight from foot to foot and fidgeting with the strap of his bag, not sure what to expect when he got there. Of course, what he got was another receptionist sitting in front of a row of offices. He sighed and shook his head.

What else should he have expected from corporate America?

"Can I help you?" The man at this desk seemed a little bit friendlier than the woman downstairs, but then again, maybe that was because at this point, people were already supposed to be there and weren't asking silly questions.

"I have an appointment," Fitz said. "Erm - I'm here to see Hannah Hutchins, in HR." He held his breath as the man hit buttons and checked the calendar.

"Sorry, I don't see an appointment." He smiled apologetically. "But Hannah actually has an open window this morning, so I'll let her know you're here Mister?"

"Jones." Fitz blinked and forced himself to keep a straight face, not picture Trip in a military uniform sauntering through the base to compliments from the rest of the team.

"Mr. Jones. Okay." The man nodded and dialed what was likely Hannah's extension as Fitz took a few steps back.

He wondered how she did it, Hannah Hutchins. How do you go from being a woman in charge of quality control at a research facility to seeing the impossible - a man trapped between worlds - and then just close up that chapter of your life to work for an insurance company? How did you deal with the fact that a man opened up a hole in space just because he liked you so much that he couldn't go a day without a visit? How did you pretend that you didn't know about the possibility of a portal spitting you out in a whole new realm? How did you just… move on from something like that?

Fitz couldn't. He knew he couldn't.

That's why he was there.

After a few whispered words from the receptionist into the phone, the man cleared his throat and smiled. "Hannah's two doors down on the left. She's waiting for you."

When Fitz stepped past the other open doors to see people on phones and typing away on computers, everything looked so normal. He felt anything but normal, knowing he was about to intrude in Hannah Hutchins' carefully cultivated new life. He hoped she would at least hear him out.

"I apologize Mr. Jones," she was saying as he walked through her doorway, "I don't have the information for you application…" She trailed off when her eyes met his face and her skin seemed to pale, her posture shrink, right before his very eyes. "Oh, God," she whispered, "is it Tobias?"

Fitz shook his head hurriedly. "No, no!" He gestured to the door behind him. "Do you mind if I...?"

Apprehension crossed her features, but she gave a noncommittal shrug in lieu of a real response, her eyes flitting from him, to the door, to her desk, and back again. She reached up to her neck, fingers wrapping around the cross she still wore there. He closed the door. He didn't need anyone listening in.

"Did something happen to Skye? Last time SHIELD checked up on me, they sent her."

Fitz wasn't entirely sure how to answer that. Mainly because the _something_ that had happened to Skye - now Daisy - probably wasn't something Hannah needed to know about. He settled for "Skye's fine."

"Then what's going on? You're a little early for my yearly check-in to make sure no interdimensional beings are following me around. And you didn't use the code name. Coulson set up a code name for the agents that came to check on me when he got me this job." Hannah paled even more. "And I told Skye last time I didn't need SHIELD looking over my shoulder. Who knows who any of you really are anymore? I watch the news. You're not Hydra, are you?"

"No!" Fitz shook his head and ran one hand through his hair. "No," he repeated more quietly. "I just - I just had a few questions about the research tha' you were a part of."

Dropping heavily into her chair, Hannah closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't know anything about the research they were doing. I just inspected equipment."

"Yes. You made sure it was workin' correctly, that pieces were assembled, that everythin' was in place. I know."

"I don't know any-"

Fitz rose his voice to be heard over hers. "You'd have to have a workin' knowledge of the projects they were doin' in order to make sure the equipment was workin' correctly."

He stopped when he saw Hannah's hands were shaking. She clasped them on the desk in front of her so hard the tips of her fingers turned white from the blood flow. He bit down on his own lip and took the seat in front of her desk, staying just at the edge in case she called security to escort him out.

"Someone -" He closed his eyes and forced the image on the security feed of Jemma being engulfed by liquified rock to the back of his mind. "Someone," he tried again, opening his eyes and mentally willing her to look at him, "I care about - they were taken, somewhere. I suspect a portal. But I don't know how to open it. We don't have the research. I think - I think darkforce powers it. If you know anythin' that could help… Please." His own hands were starting to tremble, so he put them in his lap where Hannah couldn't see them. "Please," he repeated when she opened her eyes. He was fairly certain begging wasn't SHIELD protocol when you were chasing down a lead on a missing coworker, but he didn't care. He wasn't about to threaten Hannah. She wasn't that kind of a lead. And Jemma wasn't just a missing coworker.

"I'm sorry," Hannah whispered, eyes shining with tears. "I don't know the physics behind any of it. And we never got anything to work." She sniffed, dropping her hand from her necklace to wipe her nose with the back of her hand before she grabbed a sticky note and a pen. "I can give you the names of some of the scientists we worked with. The ones that weren't -" She sighed. "The ones who weren't there during the explosion."

Fitz nodded his head. "Yes. That would be… Yes, thank you." He kept nodding while she scribbled down names. "I've been chasin' leads for months. None of them have worked. Anythin' would be good."

When she handed the paper over to him, there were only three names on it. One he knew for sure had been an asset of SHIELD, probably long gone, but the other two, he didn't know. He nodded his head again, holding the paper tightly in one hand to his chest like it was something precious.

"Agent… Fitz, right? Not Jones?"

"Right."

"Don't take this the wrong way. I hope you find what you're looking for. Who you're looking for. But please, don't come back here." She braced her hands on her desk, her whole body shaking now. "I just - I just want to forget it all happened. I want to move on with my life. And Agent Coulson said I could here."

Fitz didn't nod in agreement, but he stood swiftly, clutching the paper like a lifeline. He didn't remind her of the possibility that the man she worked with was still out there somewhere, caught in an alien realm that could be dangerous and terrifying. He didn't tell her that the one person he cared about more than anyone else could have wound up just like him. He sucked in a breath and moved away from her desk.

"I hope you can."

_I can't._

Fitz didn't say the words aloud, but with her answering sigh, he was sure she knew.

-o-

* * *

**Thanks to StarryDreamer01 for the title for this one and for both her and notapepper taking the time to read it over for me. I have a feeling I'll be writing a lot of little scenes set between seasons two and three from here on out.**


	4. Determination

Lance Hunter had never thought of himself as a vengeful person. Not really. He figured that if people did bad things, they probably got what was coming to them in the end. He didn't really think about it, just took money for his work, and went on his way.

That was all before SHIELD though. He didn't know what it was about these people. But they had a way of making you feel like you were a part of something, like you mattered, and like the people you cared about mattered. Standing outside of the lab and watching as Agent Weaver helped Bobbi hobble from one station to the next without the crutches that got in her way, he was reminded of just that.

They mattered.

And he was going to make sure that Grant Ward got his for doing this to her.

Instead of going in like he had planned, making a joke about physical therapy, and avoiding looking at the plastic case on the table that was creepily keeping Coulson's hand cut off from the open air, he turned on his heel and headed for the gym. Skye and Mack were in a meeting with Coulson, May was in the middle of the first vacation she had taken in, well, probably ever, and most of the lower level agents were keeping themselves busy with mindless tasks like inventory or monitoring the weird and unexplained crime reports coming in. Hunter would have the gym to himself.

Or so he thought.

Instead, he walked in to find Fitz, surprisingly in gym clothing instead of his usual cardigan and lab wear, standing in front of a punching bag and muttering to himself. Hunter hadn't seen Fitz in about three days, so he had just assumed the engineer was out chasing down another lead that he wasn't telling anyone about.

"Hey, mate."

Hunter hadn't meant to startle him, but when Fitz spun on his heels and gave a little jump, he held up his hands in apology.

Fitz muttered something that might have sounded like "hello" if Hunter had better hearing, but as it was, it just sounded like an indistinct mumble as he looked at the ground and started to walk off the mat.

"You want me to hold the bag for you," Hunter offered. If he wanted to hit things, he was certain Fitz wanted to hit things, maybe even tear the bag down and rip it apart. Focusing on Fitz hitting things for a while might make him feel better too.

Fitz gave a frustrated sigh and a shrug.

"Yeah, why not?"

Hunter moved around the bag, spreading his feet enough to brace himself against the impact as he placed his hands on either side, using his weight to make sure the bag wouldn't give as Fitz stood on the other side. Before Fitz could even get in position though, Hunter spotted the wraps on his hands.

"Fitz, you've gotta wrap your hands up better than that if you don't want to hurt yourself. Why don't you use gloves?"

Fitz glared at Hunter and shook his head. "It's fine. They're fine."

Hunter didn't push it, instead, just gripped the bag when Fitz put his hands up and bent slightly to get in position. He let Fitz throw a few punches before he told him, "you should try to keep one o' your hands in front to be ready to block."

Fitz nodded that he understood, and kept punching.

"You should shift your weight a bit too. Somebody came at you, they'd probably knock you over."

Fitz grunted to show he was listening, and gradually began to put more movement into his workout. Fitz wasn't pacing himself, and soon enough, he was panting with the effort of repeatedly hitting the bag, and Hunter cleared his throat, before taking a step back, motioning for Fitz to do the same.

"You want to talk about it?"

"It was another dead end."

Fitz shook out his arm in a way that Hunter hadn't seen him do in nearly a year.

"Maybe you're lookin' in the wrong places."

Fitz stared at him blankly for a moment, and then his eyes hardened as he spat out, "Jemma was eaten by a rock. I don't know wha' the right places are."

Hunter sighed and stepped away from the bag to find wraps for his own hands. "I just mean… you're lookin' at this like a professor, yeah?"

"I'm doin' the research, yeah. Tryin' to see what could make it open."

Hunter located his wraps on one of the shelves and set to work winding the fabric. "Yeah, but Skye-"

"She doesn't like that name anymore."

"Right. Not Skye. Daisy said that the lightning bug told her it was a weapon, yeah? It's ancient?"

"Yeah."

"So, maybe you need to stop askin' physicists for help. Maybe you need… I don't know… a weapons expert?" He finished wrapping up one hand. "Or maybe you need a history buff."

Fitz was silent, and his lack of a response worried Hunter enough that he turned around mid hand wrap to check on him, but Fitz was just standing there, eyes unfocused, nodding his head, his mouth slightly open. His lips were moving as though he was thinking aloud, but he wasn't loud enough for Hunter to catch what he was saying. As Hunter finished wrapping his own hand, Fitz's eyes lit up and he started running from the room.

"You're welcome!" Hunter shook his head and turned to the punching back. "Can't even hold the bloody bag for me and tell me what he's doing, can he?" He rolled his shoulders and faced off with the bag, then set to work.

-o-

It was five days before Hunter even saw Fitz again, and the only reason he did was because the engineer was next to Bobbi in the lab and the two were whispering over a computer screen when Hunter was returning from a failed effort to find a new Inhuman with Daisy and Mack.

"Should I be worried?" Hunter asked, his gaze flitting back and forth between them as he walked up.

Bobbi shook her head, eyes wide. "Nope. Just securing Fitz a non-SHIELD plane ticket."

"Where you goin'?"

Bobbi gave a hand wave and walked away. "I don't actually want to know," she told them both. She pointed at the screen and explained to Fitz, "you stole my access code. You used it. I've got plausible deniability when Coulson comes looking for you."

Fitz's face fell.

"Obviously, I'm not going to tell him you stole it," she added with a roll of her eyes. "Just, you know, if he puts in the effort to track you down. I'm just going to tell him you're chasing down an alien lead." She shrugged and started to walk away, her hand landing on Hunter's arm when she came level with him, and squeezed. "Fitz says you gave him a good tip," she whispered, low enough to not disturb Fitz as he clicked away on the screen, securing himself a plane that would take him somewhere very far away. "Maybe be careful with the tips you give him. We want him to keep coming back."

"I'm not going to stop him from finding her," Hunter responded, his voice just as low. "I wouldn't stop looking for you."

"I know." She gave him a tight smile and moved slowly to the other side of the lab.

Hunter sauntered closer to the table and eyed the computer screen as Fitz punched in information for a small country in Europe, and then flicked his eyes back up to his friend to pretend that he hadn't seen it. He wasn't going to stop him, but he didn't like the idea of Fitz being completely on his own either. If Bobbi was covering for him on the inside, Hunter could keep an ear out for him on the outside.

Especially since he was going to be nearby chasing down a possible Ward sighting.

-o-

Hunter's trip, despite giving him the satisfaction of knocking the heads together of a pair of Hydra agents, didn't turn up any news on Ward, though there were rumors that a Hydra faction in the US was under new management. A message from Bobbi, letting him know that she hadn't heard from Fitz in over 24 hours had him on high alert as he carefully picked his way through an airport in Spain though. He knew that Fitz was catching his return flight in the same place. He had made sure of it, and he was more than a little relieved to see Fitz slouched in a plastic chair, head tipped back on the seat, looking like he hadn't slept in about a week.

Hunter reckoned it was probably closer to a couple of months at the rate he'd been going.

Instead of greeting him, Hunter sank into the seat next to him without saying a word.

"Did Bobbi send you to check on me?" Fitz asked, not even opening his eyes.

Hunter waved a hand in front of Fitz's face, but the engineer didn't react, and he frowned.

"You're wearin' the cologne she bought you. And I can smell gunpowder," Fitz offered by way of explanation before he popped his eyes open.

"At least I smell good," Hunter told him with a smirk. "You smell like you just went three rounds with a rotting corpse in a pile of garbage. The other passengers are goin' to love you."

Fitz turned his head enough that Hunter could see the huge bruise forming around his eye. It was already moving from the ugly red stage to a purple.

"You didn't keep your hand up, did you?"

Fitz groaned.

Hunter had a fleeting image of Bobbi berating him for letting anything happen to Fitz while he was out on his own. As it was, they were going to have a hard time convincing Coulson that Fitz got that shiner training with him.

"Right, then. We're goin' to make a deal. I'll tell you everything I know about dealin' with the criminals you've been chasin' so you don't go off half cocked, and make sure you live long enough to find Jemma, and you'll tell me everything you know about the criminal I'm chasin' so I can…" Hunter lowered his voice and looked at the people around him. "... stop him from doing more bad things."

"You mean Ward?" Fitz sat up straight in his seat, then winced, one hand moving to rest on his rib cage.

"Yeah. But first, let's get you cleaned up." Hunter stood, gesturing for Fitz to do the same. "Where's the bloody loo in this place?" Fitz pointed to an alcove on the other side of the room. "Good. After that, we're getting a beer."

"It's 10 AM."

"What's your point?"

-o-


	5. Eternity

Once upon a time, the idea of forever was an abstract concept to her. But now, Jemma Simmons knows exactly what people mean when they talk about it. She knows what it means to be so lost in the passage of time that the length doesn't really matter. It stretches on into eternity without an end in sight.

She knows it in the way that she can't remember if the sand caused the chapped lips she has two days ago, two weeks ago, or two months ago. She knows it in the same way that she knows that no matter how many rocks she climbs or hides behind, there will always be another one. She knows it in the way the horizon blends in with the sky here. Nothing stops. Nothing ends. And she feels like she's always running.

She also knows it the same way she knows that no matter how long time feels, no matter how far it stretches, he'll never stop looking for her.

A bright spot of flickering orange amongst the deep blue haze above her proves that. She doesn't know how long she's been gone; the seconds have stretched into minutes, hours, days. It could have been years for all she knows. But somehow, she also knows that it's him. It's bright and for once, the sand in her face and the sharp points of stone underfoot don't feel like forever. They feel like something she can push through.

So she does.

She climbs a little harder. She slides down more rocks than she cares to keep track of, wind whipping her hair and sand stinging her eyes. She can feel new cuts opening, but she does not care because the orange glow will only last for so long and she knows that she has to get to it before it vanishes forever.

There's an urgency to her movements that's about more than just survival. It's about home.

She knows that he's coming for her, just as sure as she knows that she can put one foot in front of the other and make it to that little bit of warmth if it's the last thing she does.

-o-

Fitz doesn't think in abstract concepts very often. He doesn't like to dwell on things like the edge of the universe or the end of time. But he hasn't been able to stop thinking about either of them in the last six months. Because he knows that he would find his way to both if it meant getting her back.

That's why when he hears there's 60 seconds to hold the portal open, he doesn't think twice about clipping himself to the pulley instead of the probe. A 60 second window might as well be an eternity after the hell he's endured for the last six months. And he'll be damned if he can't find her within it.

He dives and doesn't look back.

But everything is blue and loud and harsh and he can't see where the ground ends and the sky begins and he doesn't have the chance to wonder how she could survive in a place like this before he's calling her name like it's the only word he's ever known.

He might not have thought in forevers and always before, but she is his, and that's all that matters when he hears her call back, his name carried on grains of sand and gusts of wind.

So he scrambles for a foothold against the wind and he yells for as long as he can. He yells until he feels like the sand is filling his lungs, and he yells even after his throat burns from the combination of the wind and the sand and his own roar, because he's afraid that if he stops, she won't know where to find him. Every time he pauses for breath, he strains to hear her voice, and he starts all over again when he can't. The grains are in his throat and stinging his eyes, but then he can see her through the pain. Her hair is long again and her clothes are torn and she looks terrified, but she's reaching out, and he's not going to let her slip away.

He'll hold on forever if he has to.

-o-

She can feel his eyes on her later after their vitals have been checked and she's been given fluids and something to help her sleep. She keeps squinting at him in the bright lights, not wanting to be more than a few steps from him at a time. He watches when she's led to a bed, and she doesn't have the energy to protest when Bobbi tells her she needs to rest. She knows she needs sleep because she can feel the ground move with every step. Her eyes search his out even as Bobbi is pulling back blankets, and she doesn't have to say anything before he's rushing back to the entrance to the pod and dragging in one of the medical cots, pushing it up against the wall a few feet away, and nodding his head. When Bobbi leaves them alone, she watches Fitz for a long time, wanting to say something, but not knowing just what the words are at the back of her throat and on the tip of her tongue, so she doesn't say anything at all. He tells her to sleep, his voice gentle and his eyes bright, and reminds her that he isn't going anywhere, that she's back now. When her lids finally slip shut, too heavy for her to hold out anymore, he's the last thing she sees, the sapphire of his eyes reminding her that not all shades of blue are bad. And she thinks she could spend forever letting him remind her of that.

-o-

He's not usually such a deep sleeper, but the adrenaline he's been running on for the last six months has finally crashed and burned out, so he doesn't wake up when she first lays her head in his lap. He doesn't even wake up when she curls in tight and holds on to his knee. He does finally wake up when he feels her shaking against him, and he knows there isn't much more he can do than stay right there and be solid, anchoring her. He has no problem doing just that, one palm gently landing on her shoulder, fingers curling over the fabric of her shirt. He almost pulls away when she stiffens in response, but then her hand, covered in cuts, is over his, her jagged fingernails scraping against his skin as she holds on for dear life. He doesn't move as her body curls into a tighter ball against his side, not wanting to startle her, but he keeps his hand in place until she falls back asleep.

When he wakes again in the morning, they're both still there, and for now, that's enough.

-o-


	6. Fallout

It's Bobbi who notices it first. Because of course it is. Who else has worked with both of them as closely as she has in the last year? Who counseled Jemma through her confusion about her feelings for Fitz? Who counseled Fitz throughout his search for Jemma?

She notices the first day that Jemma comes back to the lab to work for a few hours - because that's all Coulson was willing to clear her for - that despite the near constant furrow of her brow and the fact that she only speaks when spoken to, Simmons stays glued to Fitz's side at his workstation. She notices that during her four hour shift Fitz and Simmons never speak to one another, despite their arms brushing and shoulders touching for half the day. She notices, because she's perfectly capable of completing her own work, barking orders at the underlings, and keeping an eye on her two favorite scientists (besides herself, of course) that Fitz glances over at Simmons approximately every 10 minutes before swallowing hard and looking back at the work in front of him. Simmons always seems to glance over at him just after, as if she feels his eyes on her, and she always looks apologetic, sad even.

She also notices when Simmons comes back to do it all over again the next day that Fitz's hands shake slightly and Simmons' shoulders slump a little bit more, and despite the two of them staying side by side all day, there is definitely something very wrong in the way they look at one another and the way they don't say more than 10 words to each other during the day. Because Fitz still looks at Simmons like she's his whole world, and Simmons seems to be trying very hard to hide the same expression on her face. But it's not happy, it's not comforting. It's almost as though they are both afraid.

After three days, Bobbi is tired of it.

Following her late night workout, which Fitz is no longer keeping her company for, she decides it's time for at least one of them to give it up. She's a professional interrogator, after all. She can get them to tell her what's going on. Ordinarily, she would go to Simmons first. A little girl talk could be just what Jemma Simmons needs when she's having a rough time of it. Jemma is also, surprisingly, not as good of a liar as Fitz when he really wants to be.

After six months on an alien planet though, she thinks Jemma might not be the best person to go to first. Instead, she readies herself to talk to her former physical therapy buddy.

Once she does a few cool down stretches and tries to shake off the pain in her leg and the tightness in her chest from the missing pieces of her lung, she takes the route by the lab, and what she sees worries her.

It's Fitz and Simmons, when everything is supposed to be locked up and shut down, pressed close together over one of the tables as Fitz points out something to her on the computer screen. Jemma shakes her head.

"No, Fitz. Two moons."

That's all she has to say for Fitz to let out a frustrated sigh and drop one hand onto the binder open next to him. Bobbi watches as his hand taps and vibrates slightly on top of the white pages. He can't stop it from shaking. He looks almost as desperate as he did when Jemma was a universe away.

"Fitz -" Jemma begins, her eyes on his hand as well.

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"_I know_, Jemma!"

It's Jemma that lets out a frustrated sigh then and clicks through whatever it is they are looking at, dropping whatever else she had been about to say.

"You don't hafta keep sayin' you're sorry. I know. I understand."

They're both silent for a few moments, and they let the subject drop, but Bobbi feels the weight of whatever they aren't saying holding her in place outside of the lab doors. It's so heavy and oppressive that when her chest tightens, she knows it isn't because of the damaged lung under her ribs. When Jemma clears her throat and picks up one of the sample jars containing a sliver of the monolith, Bobbi takes a step back and shakes her head.

"The tests I ran were inconclusive. I'll have to run more tomorrow."

Bobbi walks away, resolving not to say anything to Coulson just yet. She covered for Fitz while he searched for Jemma and he found a way to get her back. She can cover for both of them while they search for whatever it is Jemma's looking for on the other side of that portal. If things get worse, she'll step in.

-o-

That's what she tells herself, anyway. But with new Inhumans popping up everyday and the ATCU being shady and Hunter on his vendetta (that really should be her vendetta), sometimes, she forgets to check on them.

-o-

The next time she sees them together, they aren't in the lab, but in the kitchen, seated at one of the old rickety tables with a teapot between them that looks to have long gone cold, empty mugs next to them. Fitz has calculations spread out across graph paper in front of them and Jemma has her phone clutched in her hand, screen still black, a jagged crack running across it.

"I think something's off here," she murmurs to him softly, her fingertips grazing the back of his hand to stop the movement of his pencil.

"Yeah." Fitz breathes through the word and stares at Jemma's fingers as they just begin to settle on his skin before she pulls her hand back to herself. "Erm - yeah. You took notes, you said? With your -" He gestures with his hand to the phone Simmons has been clutching like a lifeline when she thinks no one is watching.

She hesitates before nodding her head. "But I took it all apart. I needed the components - your battery."

"We might be able to retrieve the memory though."

"Really?" When Jemma looks up at Fitz, it's quite possibly the happiest Bobbi has seen her look since she got back. "You think you can do that?"

He nods, his eyes wide and uncertain. "It might take me some time. Depends on how much you took out."

Jemma throws her arms around him, almost knocking him out of the chair. Bobbi decides she can give them some privacy. Her protein shake can wait.

-o-

Coulson has allowed her back in the field. She's been pushing herself hard to help May, to keep up with Hunter, to feel like a part of the team again, and so it's only natural that she finds herself aching and sore and limping after another late night workout. She takes the side route back by the lab again, just to see.

She finds Mack outside, just far enough away to listen, but not close enough to be spotted.

"They okay?" She asks him.

Mack gives half a shrug in response and gestures for her to watch.

Jemma has just capped a test tube full of grey liquid and is shaking it while Fitz is pacing the length of the lab, tapping the side of his head with a pen, murmuring to himself. Bobbi's seen him do that enough times to know he's stuck on a calculation that doesn't seem to be adding up. Jemma stops the movement of her arm when a timer in front of her beeps, and she sets it into a rack, staring at it as though she can force it to do what she wants by sheer force of will.

Nothing happens.

Jemma lets out a strangled cry and slams her hands down on the surface of the table, bracing herself so she can bend at the waist and catch her breath. When she moves back to her original position and picks up the test tube as if to throw it, Bobbi and Mack both take a step forward, ready to shout for her to stop, but Fitz is already there, fingers locked around her wrist, grabbing the glass tube and putting it back. The space rock might be inert now, but who knows what could happen?

"It's okay," he tells her, but his fingers don't linger like they would have just a week ago. Instead he drops her hand and takes a step back, giving her space.

Jemma lets out a shaky breath and without looking him in the eye asks him, "How did you do this? How did you keep going for six months on something that seemed impossible?"

Fitz hesitates for just long enough that Jemma has to look at him, and Bobbi wonders how Jemma doesn't just buckle from the look in his eyes. He shrugs, a pained smile on his lips. "What else was I gonna do?"

Jemma lets out something that might have been a laugh if she hadn't begun crying. Fitz swipes a hand over his face when Jemma turns away from him, and Bobbi senses this is a conversation they've had before.

Fitz takes a step forward, putting one hand on her shoulder, before pulling her into a hug. It's then that Jemma does buckle, and Fitz has to hold her up. "We'll find him, Jemma. I promise. We'll get 'im back."

Mack and Bobbi both turn to look at one another at the same time, identical raised eyebrows and dropped jaws.

"Who the hell was over there?" Mack asks her.

"I don't know." She shakes her head, and grabs Mack's arm to pull him down the hall. "Clearly, someone important. Jemma hasn't said much about what happened over there."

"Not to us."

-o-

She's working in the lab one day when Daisy and Mack come in to pick up new ICER cartridges. Fitz was supposed to have the day off, but he's there, sitting on a stool, head in his palm as he surveys something Jemma is showing him. She's talking animatedly, but his eyes are unfocused, looking beyond the papers in front of him. Bobbi suspects he was up late the night before working on Jemma's phone again. She's offered to help him, even pretending she doesn't know what he's working on, when she's caught him at it late at night, but he always brushes her off.

Bobbi passes off the box of newly minted cartridges to Mack, as Daisy turns to look at them.

"Are you even listening to me?" Jemma's voice rises just a bit, and Fitz's gaze snaps to her, instantly focused and laser sharp.

"Of course I am."

"Well, I wouldn't be able to tell. You haven't said anything for 10 minutes, Fitz. If you don't want to help, don't let me stop you!" She gestures angrily to the door, and everything in the lab seems to slow down as Fitz jumps to his feet. Even the underlings are stopping what they're doing.

"I have been helpin' every bloody day, Jemma. I wouldn't have started this if I wasn't goin' to finish it!"

"You're not even making an effort!" Her voice might be loud, but her words are precise and clipped, like she's still holding back from whatever it is she wants to say to him.

"Not makin' an effort?" Fitz takes a step back from her as though her words have physically struck him. "No effort." He scoffs. "Do you have any idea when I las' slept? Do you know how many calculations I've run for you? How many simulations I've gone through? It took me six bloody months jus' to get you out!"

"And it's been weeks since then," she hisses.

Fitz doesn't hear her, too intent on the rant that he'd been keeping inside. "I searched for months for anythin' about tha' stupid rock. I found everythin' I could! I met with terrorists! I stole from people. I almos' got shot! I helped break tha' bloody Asgardian out of jail! I jumped into a portal to space for you. And now, I'm tryin' to do it all over again. It takes time, Jemma!" He throws his hands up in the air, and continues in a quieter voice, "If I'm not good enough, find someone else to help you get back to him."

Jemma's whole posture goes from her straight backed defiance to the slump of defeat in seconds. "Fitz."

But he turns around and bolts from the lab.

"What the hell has been going on in here?" Daisy asks the room, but no one answers her as Jemma hurries after him. Daisy looks to Bobbi for an answer.

She doesn't respond right away, her eyes instead trailing along all the other lab coats in the room. Their inhabitants are all still looking where Fitz and Simmons disappeared. "Hey," Bobbi barks at them, "you've never seen colleagues disagree before? Get your asses back to work." Mack nods his head in approval at her tactic. She knows it's a long shot that the argument, and what Fitz said, won't be spread through the entire base by dinner. It's only a matter of time now before Coulson knows. Bobbi tries to keep her face impassive as she says in a much lower voice to Daisy, "I don't know the whole story." She points to the ICERS in the other woman's hands. "And we don't have time to go through what I do know."

"I'll fill you in on the way," Mack says, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "But coms off, okay, D?"

"Coulson doesn't know?"

"No." Bobbi and Mack speak in unison and Daisy nods her head, short hair swinging against her chin.

"Tell me what you know," she commands while Bobbi watches them walk away.

-o-

Bobbi doesn't see Fitz or Simmons until dinner that night. Amazingly, it's Fitz that skips dinner. Maybe Jemma, who spent six months surviving on who-knows-what is too afraid to skip out on regular meals now that she's got them again.

Jemma's eyes are red rimmed and glassy while she mechanically spoons soup into her mouth. No one asks her what's wrong or how she's doing as they filter in and out of the kitchen and the common areas; Bobbi glares at some of the lower level scientists that pass by whispering, knowing they're the reason everyone already suspects why Jemma is upset.

She takes her own soup and sits with Jemma, plopping down without preamble across from her and smirking when Hunter joins them. He drops a hunk of crusty bread onto a napkin, tearing off a chunk of it and offering it to Jemma. Like everything else she's done since Bobbi entered the room, Jemma takes it from him mechanically, ripping off little bits and popping them in her mouth. Bobbi watches while she eats her own food. Hunter tries to draw her into conversation a few times, but Jemma does little more than shrug or nod her head when she's expected to answer.

When Jemma's bowl is empty, she stands, picking it up from the table, but Bobbi stops her.

"Don't worry, Hunter's got it."

"Wha-?" He pauses with a chunk of bread in his mouth, but stops at the glare Bobbi is leveling at him. "Yeah. I got it."

Jemma sighs and nods her thanks at him, seemingly focusing on the two of them for the first time since they sat down. "Sorry," she tells them, her voice raspy. "I'm not feeling very well." Her right hand reaches up, twisting behind her left shoulder to rub at the blade.

Bobbi remembers the scrapes and bruises she'd had there when she first got back, and wonders if some of those injuries are acting up with the anxiety brought on by the argument with Fitz. She wonders about a lot of things when it comes to Jemma these days. Because it seems like there's still a part of Jemma that's hiding things from her, and not just the work she's doing with Fitz.

Just as she starts to walk away, Bobbi puts her spoon down. "Jemma," she calls softly, "get some rest tonight, okay? I know this is important to you. Start fresh tomorrow."

Jemma looks at her for a moment as if she's going to protest, but she takes in a deep breath and nods.

-o-

When Hunter cleans up Jemma's and Bobbi's bowls, she can see it in his face. He's expecting that this rare night of downtime for him is going to involve him and Bobbi and a bed, but instead, she breezes by him and fills a bowl with soup, grabbing a spoon, and a chunk of bread.

"Fitz?" He asks, even though she knows he knows as soon as she fills the bowl.

"Fitz," she affirms with a smile and a nod.

Fitz is back in the lab, wires and hardware in front of him that Bobbi doesn't really know anything about, but that doesn't really matter. She sets the bowl down in front of him, moving some of the pieces aside with a sweep of her hand.

"Hey! Careful!"

When Fitz looks up and sees her smiling down at him, he sighs and dutifully picks up the spoon.

"Good." She nods and slides onto one of the stools next to him, stretching out her sore leg and tilting her head to indicate Hunter should leave them alone where he's waiting at the door. He does. "We made a deal. If we got in too deep, we'd help each other out."

"Tha' was until we got Jemma back," Fitz reminds her before he slurps a bit of broth from the spoon.

"Yeah, well, that was before we knew getting Jemma back led to another mission." Bobbi pauses while Fitz takes a few more quick spoonfuls of soup. "You want to tell me about it?"

"Jemma has ta go back."

"Yeah, that much I know. She did tell me that." Bobbi gives him a wry smile. "But that much everyone else knows now too after your fight in the lab." She reaches out and pats his arm, trying to reassure him. "She left someone there? That's what it sounded like?"

Fitz stares down at his soup and nods his head. "He got stuck in the sandstorm when we pulled her out."

Bobbi lets out a breath she didn't mean to hold. She hasn't been sure she'd be able to get Fitz to tell her much, but this is a start. She can tell by the tension in his shoulders that the "he" Fitz is talking about is more than just a random guy who survived. There wouldn't be this weird wall between Fitz and Simmons that had them trading guilty expressions and longing looks and never acting on their feelings if he was just some random guy.

"She needs to save him." Fitz blinks and pushes the bowl away from himself, pulling Jemma's phone, which is open, displaying all the electronic pieces Bobbi can't identify, back in front of him.

"But we broke the portal."

"Yeah."

"Okay." Bobbi tucks her hair behind her ear and leans forward. "So, tell me what we're doing."

-o-

Even with Bobbi's limited knowledge of electronics, it doesn't take long before Fitz has all of the components of Jemma's phone back in place. A few more days, that's all. She knows she hasn't done much except sit there and provide moral support while Jemma works on other projects. If Jemma doesn't want Bobbi helping, she hasn't voiced her opinion on it.

They stand there staring at it for a moment on the lab table, and it's Bobbi, as usual, who speaks first.

"Should we go get Jemma?"

Fitz shrugs. Bobbi has seen the two of them talking. They haven't yelled at each other since their blow up in the lab, but she suspects they've been talking behind closed doors where no one can see him. She had even seen Jemma reach out and squeeze Fitz's hand in the hallway earlier that day, a genuine smile on her face for the first time in a long time. She doesn't really want to ruin that.

"Maybe," Bobbi offers, "we should try to look at her notes first. Make sure it all works."

Again, Fitz shrugs, but then he blows out a harsh breath and nods, reaching for the phone, and running his finger over her lock screen. He hesitates before putting in her passcode though.

"Feels wrong," he explains. "Jemma's notes're in here, but…"

"But she was also alone for a good chunk of time and it might not just be notes," Bobbi finishes for him. The thought had occurred to her too. If she had been stranded and thought no one was coming for her, or that someone would find her long after her life was over, she'd have left one last message for the people she cared about. "She didn't have anyone else to talk to," Bobbi adds before nodding, and Fitz puts the phone back down, turning away from it. Instead of saying anything else to him, Bobbi moves over to her own usual workstation, her strides coming easier, smoother, now that she's back in the regular field rotation. She pulls a pair of earbuds from one of the cups of pens on the surface of her desk and walks back to Fitz, not bothering to check with him as she plugs them into the phone and holds it out to him. "Unlock it. I'll look through some of them, just to make sure it works, that's all. We don't have to talk about what's in it. And I won't tell Simmons I saw it."

Fitz doesn't make a move to unlock the phone though, and Bobbi sighs. She can probably figure out Simmons' passcode herself. It's probably Fitz's birthday actually, now that the idea's in her head. Easy for her to remember, but not her own, so it's not the first thing an enemy would think of unless they had been close enough to her to know how important Fitz is to her.

Fitz shakes his head. "It doesn't seem fair to her. Like readin' her diary or somethin'."

"Does Simmons even keep a diary?"

He shakes his head again, but he still looks uncomfortable.

"Look, Fitz. If we give this back to her and it turns out there's nothing on it, it'll just be that much worse. She'll feel like you guys have hit another wall. If we know we're giving her something to work through, it'll be better. We want to give her hope, not take it away."

She holds the phone even closer to him. Even though she thinks she could unlock it at this point, she knows that it's probably better if it's Fitz that does it. Jemma didn't ask for her help. She asked Fitz. When he takes the device from her and swipes a finger over the screen again, she places the earbuds in her ears and waits for him to initiate the sequence of numbers. After the _click click click click_ echoes in her ears, he hands it back to her as though his hands might catch fire and starts pacing in front of the workstation, his hands going to the top of his head, then his hips, then his pockets, as he waits. Bobbi pulls the phone closer to her and taps her way into Jemma's voice memos, swallowing hard and trying to keep her face blank so as not to alarm Fitz - no matter what she finds.

The files aren't really labeled, just time stamped. She chooses one at random.

_You'd be so proud of me, Fitz. I killed the monster plant, then I made a fire, cooked him, and ate him._

Bobbi lets the smile sneak through. She hasn't heard much about Jemma's experiences on the other side of the portal, but she knew Jemma was tougher than she looked. She glances over at Fitz, who is staring at the ceiling instead of at her. She decides not to tell him yet that the entries are addressed to him. She has a feeling it isn't just the one. She clicks away and chooses another, a later one. It's much shorter than the ones that come before it.

_Good news, Fitz! I've found help._

And that's it. The entry cuts off. Bobbi frowns and clicks another one, farther down the line.

_Fitz, please. I need you to come and find me. I don't have all the information. I don't know how much longer-_

Static cuts in, and Bobbi's frown deepens. The excitement of finding help seems in contrast with what she's hearing now. She moves to the last entry instead, knowing that they're going to have to go through these one by one now. They don't have a choice.

_This place is hell._

Jemma's whimper at the end cuts right through Bobbi, slicing her deep and reminding her of the woman who first emerged from the portal in Fitz's arms - broken and battered, and barely able to stand on her own. A part of her wants to delete the memo. She doesn't want Fitz to hear the pain in Jemma's voice and she doesn't want Jemma to relive it, but she knows they can't afford to delete _anything_ until they know _everything_. She exits the memos and moves to the video, wondering if Jemma recorded anything, or if she stayed away from it to conserve her battery. Even Fitz's super battery couldn't last a full six months.

Scrolling beyond videos from before her disappearance, Bobbi bypasses birthday celebrations and board games, and finds what she's looking for. There are only a few, but that's something. The first is clearly right after Jemma's emergence on the other planet as the camera pans her surroundings, and Jemma's voice is clinical and firm as she recounts her experience. She's not scared. She's not worried. She's in science mode. The planet is dark, but it's just as Jemma describes it for her - rocky, sandy, two moons in the sky. Bobbi clicks the next video. It's Jemma analyzing the thing she calls the "monster plant." As she discusses the different parts that she's cutting into and cooking, Bobbi can't help but smile again. It's so very Jemma, trying to find a way to label the thing that looks like something out of a sci-fi B movie, even while she's stranded and alone.

_Oh, Fitz. You would hate this. I should probably try to preserve some to bring back though. It's fascinating. If it wasn't also intent on killing me every time I get in the water._

Bobbi moves to the next one after hearing the drop in her friend's voice. Jemma's speech fills her ears, but there's no picture this time. Everything's too dark for her to make anything out, though she can tell based on the gradient of blacks and greys that Jemma must be trying to get a look at something.

_I've been trying to chart the stars, but my battery is dwindling and I can't afford to risk it dying before you find me. I just want you to know, Fitz... I know you're trying to find a way here. I've been keeping my eye out for conditions similar to the portal. But - this planet seems to be nothing but solid rock and sandstorms. I haven't even seen the sun._

There's only one more. Bobbi clicks on it, unsure what she's going to find. It's Jemma, smiling, then panning the camera around old NASA equipment, talking to someone out of frame. And Bobbi can't put her finger on it, but something's wrong. Something about Jemma's eyes is not Jemma. It reminds her of -

She pauses the video and stares hard, her breathing sharp, and she knows that her change in demeanor is going to alarm Fitz. She senses rather than sees his arms swing down from where he's placed them on top of his head again.

"Wha' is it?" His voice asks.

"Hang on."

Bobbi plays the video, pausing every few seconds, trying to catch a glimpse of the other person as Jemma outlines her plan for using the equipment, for finding the portal. Bobbi knows the science is important, but she's more interested in the way Jemma's smile is pasted on, like she can't let it fall. She's more interested in the stiff movements Jemma makes, the way she holds the camera slightly off center, the way Jemma just doesn't look like Jemma. Something's wrong. Bobbi knows it.

When Jemma blinks at the end of the video and reaches up as though to wrap her fingers around the necklace that usually hangs from her neck, the one that isn't there, her face changes slightly to one of confusion and awareness, her head shifting from side to side like she's waking up from a strange dream, and the video cuts to black.

Bobbi yanks the earbuds from her ears and remembers another SHIELD agent with a similar expression on her face after she was introduced to her by Bakshi - after Kara had spent days having her brain turn on her so that she would be easier to control, always ready to comply.

"Fitz," Bobbi swallows down the panic that she's starting to feel. _Good agents don't panic_, she reminds herself, _especially when they have to be the level headed one in a situation_. "We can't show these to Jemma yet." Her voice spikes a bit and Fitz's eyes widen. Bobbi doesn't think Fitz has ever seen her scared before, not like this.

"Show me." Fitz doesn't hesitate to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bobbi, taking one earbud and placing it so he can hear everything.

-o-


	7. Gossamer

Confetti Canon: Gossamer

Bobbi had seen agents after they'd been injured in the field. She'd seen it when her coworkers had come back broken and battered and shadows of their former selves. She had seen the way others looked at them, barely disguised pity behind their eyes. And of course, that relief that lurked just below the surface - relief that it wasn't them. Just a year ago she had seen those looks aimed at Fitz. She didn't know that one day she'd have those looks aimed at her.

Fitz and Hunter were the only ones in the entire building who didn't look at her that way, like she was a butterfly and one quick pull would disable her wings and leave her crashing to the floor.

Three months into her physical therapy and she knew she couldn't bend her leg far enough to lift the weight that she wanted on the machine, so she quickly adjusted the peg and flopped onto the bench in the gym. Carefully hooking her legs under the lift, she stretched her legs out and brought them down, taking in a slow breath and letting it out. She repeated the action nine more times before she turned her head to the side and looked at the person sitting on the floor.

If anyone looked like they were a butterfly who'd had flight stolen from them, it was him.

Fitz, head in his hands, was muttering to himself again. He'd been doing that a lot since Simmons had disappeared into liquified rock. He had a tablet in his lap, but he wasn't looking at it. Instead, he was staring somewhere beyond her, working something out in his brain that she probably wouldn't even be able to understand. She tried not to let herself look at him the way the others did. She tried to put herself in his shoes, but that only made her angry.

She did another ten lifts, keeping her eyes on him the whole time. When he sat up and ran his hands over his face in frustration, she realized it had probably been at least three weeks since he'd shaved.

"You should trim that," she told him, her voice rasping after not having been used while her lungs worked overtime to keep up with her punishing pace.

"What?"

"That beard. You're starting to look like a caveman."

"Hunter said it makes me look older."

Bobbi tried to snort as she began another set of lifts, but her knee pulled awkwardly and her chest felt tight, so it came out as more of a gurgled cough. Her whole body seized up, muscles tightening, and panic settled in every fiber of her being for just a second. That second was long enough for Fitz to see it though, and he was on his feet, tablet forgotten on the floor.

"Up!"

She followed his instructions, dropping her legs and pushing herself to sit up straight while he gave her a once over, hand on her back, moving in slow circles as though he could somehow make her damaged lung work the way it was supposed to.

"I'm fine," she told him, having to clear her throat before she could say it.

"Yeah, I know." Fitz dropped his hand from the spot between her shoulder blades and took a step back. "We're fine," he added under his breath. She could hear the eye roll even though he wasn't facing her.

She didn't move, letting her legs stay under the rods she was supposed to be lifting, but not making another attempt at it. He would probably start yelling at her if she did. And she hated when Fitz, of all people, put on the dad voice and called her _Barbara_. It would be another lecture on patience. That was the exact opposite of what she needed. Sometimes she did things just to get a rise out of him, when it seemed like he had gone too long without letting off some steam, when he was too deep in his research into the monolith and she wasn't sure if he'd eaten or showered. But right now, he didn't need that. And neither did she.

She took a few slow breaths in and out, testing how deep she could breathe. When she was sure she wouldn't seize up again, she carefully rolled her shoulders and allowed herself a small stretch.

"I still think you need to shave."

Fitz scoffed and picked up his tablet from the floor.

-o-

"Come on, Fitz. Please."

"Nope. Absolutely not."

His head was hidden behind a folder at the table. He was pretending to look at specs for an addition to the plane she knew he had actually finished two days earlier. In reality, he was reading something about a group who had access to the monolith two hundred years ago. He just wasn't supposed to be chasing another lead. Coulson had ordered them to focus on the situations at hand when 60 days went by without so much as a blip from the monolith.

"I need someone to spar with," Bobbi snapped, placing her weight on her good leg, and leaning forward to pull the folder down.

Fitz took a bite of his toast and didn't say anything.

"Fitz."

"Ask Mack."

"He's on a mission with Skye. Daisy. Damn. Now I owe her another five bucks."

Fitz took another bite of his toast and Bobbi took a seat at the table, letting go of the folder. She waited until Fitz finished the piece of toast and drained the last of his cup of tea.

"So?"

"I said no."

"Fitz."

"Bobbi."

"I need to not be completely out of shape when I'm ready to go back into the field."

Fitz set his cup back down onto the table and ran the tip of his finger up and down the handle. He didn't say anything.

"Oh. My. God. Are you afraid you're going to hurt me?" Bobbi leaned back in her chair with a huff. "I just need the practice."

"What? No!" The light pink coating his face told Bobbi that she was right.

"You're not going to hurt me."

"You've got half a bloody lung. What if -"

"Leopold."

He looked askance at the use of his first name, and Bobbi knew it was the kind of betrayal that could annoy him enough to _want_ to hit her, but whether that was enough to push him over the edge, she wasn't sure.

He snapped the folder shut as someone else walked into the room and headed for the coffee pot. "Fine, _Barbara_. But if I help you, you help me." He pointed at the pages hidden there.

"Deal." She stood up carefully with a grin on her face. "Go change. You can tell me what you're looking at while we warm up."

-o-

He didn't look her in the eye when she told him the doctors wouldn't clear her for field work. It had been more than four months since Ward tortured her and she took the shot meant for Hunter, and she was finally starting to feel _normal_. Almost. She decided not to tell Fitz that she was relieved that she wasn't cleared, that when she thought about being in her old uniform out in the field, it made her chest contract and squeeze painfully. It still made her nervous every time she saw Hunter put on tact gear and head onto a plane without her, but she was more nervous about the possibility of her freezing up on a mission and costing the team someone else's life.

Fitz kept his eyes on the computer in front of him, so Bobbi sat on the stool by his side and waited. After a few moments, he turned to her and shrugged.

"Tha's okay. I could use your help here. Can't leave the rest o' these idiots alone for too long."

Bobbi grinned at him. "Yeah, that's true," she agreed. "Last time you went after that lead in… where was it? Mexico?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter." She pointed to one of the lab techs at the opposite end of the room. "That guy tried to modify the ICER cartridges you'd been working on. He put three of the techs in quarantine."

Fitz's lip curled back in disgust.

"Clearly, when you aren't here, I should be in charge."

"Oh, you think so?" Fitz pretended to think about it. "I mean, I might have to clear tha' with Coulson…"

"Ah, but then we'd have to tell Coulson that you plan on making another trip."

"Good point."

"So do I have the job?"

"Jus' 'til Jemma gets back."

Bobbi held out her hand to shake on it. When Fitz gripped hers, she grinned again.

"Now, what are we doing this week to make sure that I'm not in charge for much longer?"

-o-

She had kept herself firmly upbeat for Fitz's sake. She was the only one left who was fielding his theories about just where Jemma could be. Coulson was willing to accept her as killed in action. Most of the team was willing to accept his decision. Bobbi wasn't willing to take hope away from Fitz, and she'd been the one to ask him to delay telling Jemma's parents she was missing. But being the one to buoy Fitz up meant that sometimes, she was just using him to distract herself from her own shortcomings.

It was during a particularly grueling physical therapy session that Fitz saw her break down. It was the first time in months that she'd let things overwhelm her. And it was the first time in front of Fitz. It was usually Hunter who got the brunt of her frustration, and that was only because he had other ways of helping her work it out.

But when her leg gave out during her jog on the treadmill and she was forced to slide back off the machine, slamming herself down onto the ground as Fitz rushed to her side, she felt the angry tears sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them. She couldn't even run anymore. She was a secret agent who specialized in information gathering and she couldn't even run down an escape route if she was caught anymore. Her anger at her own body was compounded by Fitz giving her _the look_.

It was the wide and earnest eyes he gave Daisy whenever she lost control and he talked her down. It was the slightly downturned lip that was pretending to be a comforting smile he'd given Hunter when they were chasing down a Hydra lead. It was the way he hung his head when he felt badly that he didn't explain something well enough for even Mack to get. It was the firm set and quiet determination when he watched the video of Jemma being swept away. It was like all of Fitz's supportive and pitying looks had suddenly been combined into one and were all be levelled in her direction.

And she really wanted to punch him in the face for it.

But she couldn't even catch her breath to do that.

"Don't." She bit out the word before trying to suck in a lungful of air, but her chest wouldn't cooperate.

"What?" Fitz held his hands out in front of him. "I didn't do anythin'?"

"Don't look at me like that!"

The stricken expression on his face that followed made Bobbi realize that Fitz didn't know he was doing it. She knew how much he hated to be on the receiving end of similar expressions. He shifted next to her, putting his own back against the wall, and ran one hand over his face. "'m sorry."

She panted out a few more breaths, but she didn't say anything else.

"Count to five," Fitz reminded her. "Five in. Five out."

She nodded her head and did as she was told, edging her way back to sit next to him. He didn't say anything while she cried, and he stared straight ahead instead of watching her, which she appreciated more than she could tell him, so she reached over and wrapped one hand around his arm, squeezing to let him know that she wasn't mad at him.

-o-

The next day, she walked up to Fitz in the lab and tossed a set of keys on the table, acting like absolutely nothing tear-filled had happened the night before.

"What're these for?"

"Car keys. Come on, we're getting out of here."

"But -"

"No, I haven't been medically cleared. This is not an official mission. And there will not be combat. Unless you give me lip. Come on." She rolled her eyes and headed for the garage, trusting that he would follow her.

If Fitz was surprised that she made him drive, he covered well. Either that, or he anticipated that she'd want to be able to stretch her leg out as far as she could. She gave him instructions as he drove, and when her instructions had him pulling the car into a parking space outside of a very large mall, he made the appropriate face of disgust that she expected.

She grinned when he turned to her in confusion.

"Hunter and I were talking last night."

He raised an eyebrow at that.

"Okay, this morning," she admitted, "after -"

"I'm sure I can figure out when," Fitz cut her off and closed his eyes.

Bobbi tried not cringe. She was sure Fitz didn't need that particular mental image in his mind considering he'd been treating her like his favorite big sister lately. At least he wasn't lecturing her on overexerting herself.

"Right. Anyway. We think you need appropriate clothing for going undercover."

"What?" His eyes popped open in surprise.

"Hunter thought I should just raid the undercover closet for you, but I thought this would be good for you. And me. Getting out of the base for something normal. Just for a couple hours."

"Oh."

The sat in the car for a few more minutes and Fitz stared out at the people with shopping bags walking through the lot, people laughing and talking, people who had no idea that there were people like them in the world who could stop the planet from experiencing a nuclear meltdown, but hadn't been inside a mall for something that wasn't related to a secret mission in years. Bobbi realized that she genuinely couldn't remember the last time she had been in a mall. She wondered if Fitz could.

"We don't have to," she told him. "I just thought t-shirts and cardigans might not be the best thing to wear every time you chase down a lead. You need to look the part."

"Yeah." Fitz hesitated, but eventually he pulled the keys from the ignition. "No ties though. Sometimes, I still have trouble." He held up his hand and shook it a bit to emphasize his point. "Besides, Coulson can't tie his now. Wouldn't wan' to make him feel bad."

"Good call," Bobbi agreed.

In the end, they both got frustrated with the teenagers skipping school to shop, the women who clearly spent most of their lives in the mall, and the sales associates who wished they could be anywhere else but there that kept getting in their way. All Bobbi wanted to do was find Fitz clothes that he liked, that made him look like the fully capable SHIELD agent he was. All Fitz wanted to do was get it all over with. Bobbi managed to get Fitz to buy a pretty large amount of clothing for the 40 minutes they lasted in the high end men's store. And then, she rewarded them both by buying them chocolate shakes in the food court. And if she "accidentally" tripped a teenager she saw making fun of a stuttering girl on her way to the garbage can, she considered it good karma that she refrained from knocking him out cold. She was a grown woman and a trained spy, so teaching teenagers a lesson probably wasn't something she should do in the middle of a food court.

The way Fitz laughed at the boy's confusion before gathering up his purchases and walking to the car made her feel a little lighter about the whole thing though. She almost didn't notice that she was limping her way through the parking lot.

-o-

Bobbi tried to cross her legs the way she normally would, but the brace on her knee pulled and pinched, so she stretched her legs out in front of her again, waiting. You'd think after months in a brace, she would know better. She had seen Fitz walk by, eyes wide and with a frantic wave in her direction twice already, but Andrew wasn't going to let her out of her session so soon.

"So, how's that going?" Andrew gestured to her knee and Bobbi shrugged.

"It's getting there. Still a little tight. Not the same old range of motion. It takes time."

"Yes. You've been very patient with it."

Bobbi thought back to the times it was just her and Fitz in the gym or the lab late at night, one of them near tears about their respective problems, and the other working out the solution. She thought about all the times Hunter had held the punching bag for her while she tried to find a new way to balance her weight. She thought about both of them allowing her to spar with them, even though neither of them wanted to fight her. She thought about the time Fitz had run into the gym because he knew she'd be working alone at 4AM and had just started babbling at her about his findings, and she'd yelled at him to just leave her alone and let her work her knee. She thought about the time her leg had given out in the lab and she thought she couldn't breathe, and Fitz had made sure that no one saw, and the only one he'd told was Hunter. And she thought about Hunter, who was keeping her supplied with her favorite beverages every time a mission took him out to California, and was keeping her mind and body occupied when she dwelled too long on the pain - Hunter, who was searching for Hydra intel in his spare time the way Fitz was scouring the world for clues about the monolith. And she thought about the times she'd seen Fitz on the verge of a breakdown because he'd hit another dead end, but he would pull himself together long enough for her to help him find another trail.

And she knew that as much as Andrew was telling her she appeared patient, she wasn't. She wanted to be back to her best. She wanted to take the brace off and burn it. She wanted to be able to take a deep breath and not feel like her lungs were going to explode. She wanted to help Hunter track down Ward. She wanted to help Fitz find a way to bring Jemma home. She wanted to know what was going on with Daisy and Mack's missions. She wanted to know where May was and why she wasn't coming back. She just wanted to hold them all together a little while longer until Coulson felt like Coulson again, but her patience was wearing down.

She suspected Andrew knew that.

But she just smiled.

"Yeah, well, there's a lot of other things to do around here that don't involve being out in the field."

He made some sort of noncommittal noise of agreement. "How are you liking the lab? I hear you're running it."

"Fitz is in charge," Bobbi answered automatically.

It was like her saying the words summoned him, because his head popped up on the other side of the door - she could just make him out in the window. She ran a hand through her hair and gave another stretch. She couldn't quite read the expression on his face. He didn't look panicked, so she was pretty sure the lab wasn't in flames or anything like that. He didn't look terrified, so she knew nothing had happened to Hunter on his latest mission. He also didn't look completely calm though, so she knew something was bothering him. He hadn't hovered over one of her therapy sessions with Andrew in a long time.

"Is there somewhere else you need to be?" Andrew asked.

She was clearly out of practice at diverting her attention between the person in front of her and the person behind them. Being undercover at Hydra felt like a decade ago.

"No." Bobbi shook her head. "It's not that. I think -" She forced herself to her feet. "I'll be right back."

But when she poked her head out the door and found Fitz leaning against the wall, she had a feeling she wouldn't be so eager to return.

"I found somethin'," he hissed at her so no one who happened to come down the hall would overhear.

"Okay." Bobbi smiled and nodded her head. "Tell me."

"There's a scroll," Fitz started, and Bobbi tried very hard to keep her smile in place. A scroll was never a good thing. A scroll was like an 084 that only existed in a legend. A scroll could be worse than the monolith itself with SHIELD's track record. "-tha' was found with the monolith centuries ago. It's ancient. It's supposed to tell you exactly what the rock is. And I know who has it."

"Fitz," Bobbi cut in, stepping completely out of the room and closing the door behind her so Andrew couldn't hear her. "You can't break into anyone's national archives. That could be an act of war depending on the country. We can ask for it though."

"What? No!" He held out his tablet and showed her a picture of a group of men who were considered known terrorists in their home countries. "They have it. They stole it. I jus' have to get it from them."

He looked so excited that Bobbi didn't have the heart to tell him that this particular lead seemed like the longest of his long shots, and likely the most dangerous. She had become so used to him being the one to help her keep her head above water that she forgot she was doing the same for him. Six months was a long time to feel like you weren't gaining any ground.

"Okay." Bobbi let out a slow breath. "Okay," she repeated, trying to think of a game plan for him, but Fitz was already ahead of her.

"I have a plan. They want weapons. I can give them tha'. Or make them think tha' anyway. I worked it out." He ran through a quick explanation of his fake splinter bombs, something he had apparently spent the night working on without her or Hunter. "I jus' need you to cover for me. Jus' for the day."

"Oh, yeah. Okay." She nodded again and tried not to be hurt that he didn't need her help with an actual plan. She had spent months helping him. It had been the perfect distraction. And now, he didn't need her. She hoped his plan was solid. She hoped Fitz wasn't walking into a deathtrap.

"So I'll see ya tomorrow. I'll let you know what I find, yeah?" He turned and headed down the hall, intent on getting to the next piece of the puzzle.

"Don't die out there," Bobbi whispered softly. Unlike Hunter, Fitz didn't need to hear it, but it made her feel a little bit better to have put the wish out into the universe anyway, especially with him going off on his own while Hunter was out on a job with Mack and Daisy, May was nowhere to be found (though she still suspected Coulson knew the truth about that), and Jemma was still in an alien space rock. And she was in the base. Heading into therapy. Again.

When she returned to her session with Andrew, taking her seat carefully across from him, it was the first time during one of their talks that she felt like a brand new butterfly with wings too weak to use, like she was stuck on the ground, and the slightest pluck would send her spiraling.

-o-

* * *

**I had some requests for more Bobbi, so you got another story from her point of view this time around. I don't have a lot of practice writing for Bobbi, so hopefully I've been doing her justice.**


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